Still learning – drama off Oz east coast

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After 7 years, and 10,000 sea miles, there are a few things I always wondered about Gray Matter – never expected to discover all of them in a period of 5 hours.   To name a few; how would Gray Matter handle dead in the water in 25 knots of wind, abeam to 4-6 foot waves; how about underway without stabilization; what is required to tow and with what tackle; and most importantly how to diagnose a fuel system puzzle while rolling 30 – 40 degrees abeam to a building sea state.

Underway down the east coast of Australia from Brisbane to Newcastle with following wind and sea, we experienced a main engine failure, leaving Gray Matter without the Naiad stabilizers.   We started the Wing Engine, which failed within 5 minutes.

The nature of the engine failures appeared similar to fuel contamination, with a slowing of RPM, loss of power then finally the “sounds of silence”.  So that was our working hypothesis.
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Back to Oz

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After nearly 5 years, here is the short version of a long story.

In March 2015, Mark took a job as Corporate Treasurer at Broadcom and moved back to Silicon Valley.   May 2016 we moved Gray Matter with professional crew to New Zealand.

Having a moveable vacation home in New Zealand is definitely one of life’s great luxuries, and we explored from Bay of Islands to Auckland, including some of the offshore islands (Hen and the Chicken Islands, and Poor Knights).   We tested our coldwater scuba gear, realized we are warm water divers.  And like Australia we now leave New Zealand with a list of places we feel we missed and can’t wait to return to:  Great Barrier Island, Marlborough Sound, and Milford Sound).

Gray Matter continues her upgrade journey, and several major projects accomplished while in New Zealand.   Ten plus years of bottom paint were soda blasted to bare fiberglass, epoxy coated and new antifouling paint applied.   In addition, Gray Matter has overhauled stabilizers with new bearings, seals and hydraulics lines, and a freshly serviced Caterpilar, with value adjustment, new injectors, and all new filters.   After 7 faithful years, the house and start battery bank needed replaced, and we continue to appreciate how power efficient Gray Matter is with solar, and low draw refrigeration.  Polished fuel tanks polished and fuel, before taking on 1200 gallons of duty free fuel on departure; Gray Matter is ready for more adventure.

We are now 150 nautical miles north of the North Island, skirting a bit of weather in the Tasman to the north, we plan to run 50 miles southwest of Norfolk Island before turning west for Brisbane arriving sometime March 23 – 24  (2018!).

Christine continues to hold her academic position in Brisbane, and Mark is now working as a CFO at a start-up in Napa.    Returning to Australia provides an opportunity to use the boat more as we hope to see more of the Great Barrier Reef and make a trip to the Kimberleys before venturing either north to Asia, or back east for a loop through New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga before heading north.

We’ll add pictures when we have more bandwidth.

 

A Year Down Under

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After crossing the Pacific it seemed challenging to find an appropriate blog post to match the adventure we’d just experienced. Now a year has passed and reflecting back we’ve explored quite a bit of Queensland, which is just a small corner of a vast country.

We acquired two Husqvarna 650 dual-sport motorcycles to explore on land. AirBnB provided a lovely Spanish Hacienda in the middle of the Queensland hinterland, and some beautiful motorcycling roads in north New South Wales.

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The end of the Pacific crossing and a new start at Brisbane

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We’ve been in Brisbane just over a week, after anchoring nearly everyday for 9 months, making our own water and power, it feels like we’re in the land of plenty. No worries about the anchor dragging, the batteries needed charged, and the water maker filters needed changed. This was our goal, and the achievement is bittersweet as this marks the end of a great adventure.

Gray Matter at Dockside Marina.

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Brisbane – at last!

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We arrived at the Customs and Quarantine dock at 11:30am local time. The first 7 days of our passage were smooth and easy – watching movies, reading books. The Pacific Ocean decided to give us one last reminder of “who’s boss” – and the last 24 hours were some of the most challenging we have seen in the entire voyage. We saw it coming. The grib file we got in Fiji before we left forecast a system developed from South AUS and would bring 20 kt wind along AUS east cost. We knew it would be bad, but thought we can deal with it. Well, it was ROUGH. For 15-20 hr, wind blew out of N NW, with confused sea up to 3 m, short interval. We changed heading a couple times to avoid aggressive rolls. But still, we had 30 degree roll every 20 min, and a couple times 40-45 deg. And once 50 deg! Guess it is good to know the boat can take it, and no damage to the boat or the crew,

After a LONG day and night, it finally calmed down … We arrive Mereton bay in beautiful sunset and cruised in Brisbane river before noon. We are here resting up at Rivergate marine, and it is a beautiful evening on the Brisbane River.

We’ll post a bit later on the perspectives from spending 9 months exploring the Pacific, no question arriving in Brisbane is bittersweet: we accomplished our goal, but sad to make a temporary end to our great adventure.

New Caledonia — passing through

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After 3 days and 8 hours at sea, we passed the south tip of New Caledonia, Isle Des Pine, almost half way to Brisbane.  Except for the first 24 hours, the sea condition has been excellent, just a bit breeze with gentle swells. Last night, we had to run though several layers of squalls, with lightening all over the place – a hair raising experience.  Luckily, we went through without drama. 

We could spend a night here at Isle Des Pine. But with such good condition, we decided to push on.  ETA @noon on Sept 18.

Port Denarau – prep for the last leg

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We posted earlier about how much we are enjoying Fiji. The perfect combination of isolated islands, great diving, and yachting infrastructure. We have now spent a total of 10 days at Port Denerau marina – more days in the marina than anywhere else on the trip. While Gray Matter is a superyacht to us – it is a bit humbling to be med-moored amongst the giants – 100ft+ on all sides.

Port Denarau


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Musket cove

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While in Mexico, we invited Christine’s family to visit us on our big adventure.  We originally agreed to host 3, however as the excitement grew, all 8 extended family members wanted to see Gray Matter and experience the South Pacific. From faraway Cabo San Lucas, we researched on resorts in Fiji and quickly arranged them to book the Plantation Resort on Malolo Lai Lai island, adjacent to Musket Cove where we could anchor Gray Matter. Five months and an ocean-crossing later, When we met Christine’s parents, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, 2 cousins in Nadi and set out to Malolo Lailai Island we had no idea it would be one of the memorable stops of our trip.

Musket Cove is one of the most popular cruising destinations in Fiji. It is a well-sheltered cove between Malolo island and Malolo Lai Lai island, which hosts Plantation resort in addition to two other resorts and a handful private properties. Here is also home to the infamous Musket cove marina and yacht club. We had a fabulous time here. Musket cove has the perfect formula – with all the beauty and allure of the South Pacific, a well established yacht-friendly infrastructure and, once again, the most welcoming Fijian culture.

The pictures will speak for themselves, we should note that we have had less rain (1 day in 2 weeks), and moderate temperatures (mid 80s) which explain why we and many others just hang out here.

Anchorage

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The Amazing underwater world (video)

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Sometimes what seems like the biggest challenge turns into the biggest blessing. In American Somoa we noticed a problem with our dive compressor, sure enough when we arrived in Fiji, it would not fill tanks beyond 1500psi (half full). With good internet in Savu Savu we contacted the dealer in Sydney Australia and they suspect the fourth stage has failed. They have a piston and cylinder in stock and we arranged to have it shipped to Nadi later the month. Yet, the reality is that we are in some of the world’s best diving without a compressor.

Running between the moorings in our “micro dinghy” we stopped and chatted with a couple from Chicago on “Eagle’s Wings”. They have been cruising for 9 years, and this is their 3th season in Fiji, returning to NZ for each cyclone season. They offered that they were going to the Namena Marine Reserve and would be happy to fill our tanks.

Arriving in the Namena we anchored near Eagle’s Wings, and arranged to dive with Ken and Beth the next day. A couple days later, 3 NZ boats arrived – one of them, “Just In Time”, carry a big dive compressor unit onboard – 10 minutes a tank – Mark is having serious compressor envy. Soon enough, we were doing 2-3 dives a day with all these new diver friends we just made and having a blast.

We logged 12+ dives in the week at Namena and Makongai- absolutely spectacular – the best soft and hard coral we had seen. Check out the action in the video.

Namena island

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